[Tom_Scudder]

Wow, after that, what else is there to say? Very quickly: I think I should be able to squish Ulm - I'm pretty sure I have a bigger industrial base and now I have a foothold right next to his home territory. Swap my money out of making researchers and into breeding spiders, and I should be able to start sieging his castle in two turns or so. Losing the dragon hurts, and I only have 6 priest-power right now - I'll also be recruiting voices of the lord (who also might come in handy if Ulm has other undead or demons about, and who I probably needed to start recruiting at some point), which are 3 strength priests, but if I recruit nothing but votl's and put them to calling immediately, my calling will go (4 + 7 + 12 + 15 + <15= 5 turns to get Cirin back) Most Holy is currently sitting on a priest-recruitable province if he builds a temple there - that would go (0 + 7 + 14 + 19 = 40 precisely in 4 turns, plus it leaves me with a temple where I would have to build one eventually anyway. But it also leaves me with 2 semi-useless independent priests, and sucks out more money during the middle of a war effort. Still, 4 turns is better than 5 turns. The other thing I haven't mentioned is that I've also found Pythium's home city, and it's only one space removed from my southeasternmost province (Midkrona, for those keeping score at home).

As part of the war effort, I have three mages in my capital raise undead - my witch doctor and sorcerer cast "construct Manikin" (thereby spending 20 of my 24 nature gems), and a sorceress casts reanimation, using all 5 of my death gems. I also alchemize 6 fire and 11 earth gems to be able to pay for a temple, and recruit a voice of the lord, 2 black hunters, one more scout in the province bordering pythium, and 1 independent archer in the province bordering Ulm. I ship 4 nature gems to Pythium as a sign of peace, friendship, and brotherhood, and really really hope (1) they're playing serpent cult and so feel inclined to trust a fellow-lizard and (2) they don't realize quite yet that Cirin is dead.

I run my province defense in my new province to 9, which is all I can afford without (even more) alchemy. I also move my Black sorcerer, Kimya, over from where he's just found an Earth Blood Seepage (+2 Earth), so he can bolster the defenses and search at the same time. Mjima starts walking my infantry from the capital over - strat move 1, it'll take them 2 turns. I also send Tefle (my other new sorceress) up to the front with four archers and two more Hunters, and order poor simple Shujaa back to the capital so he can ferry reinforcements up later.

If Ulm comes at me next turn, I will have a province defense of 9, along with 7 hunters, 9 archers, 1 level 4 priest, and 2 mages: a 2-path and a 1-path fire and death mage with only evo 1/ench 1 to work with. That probably won't survive if they hit me with all 60 units (assuming they really have 60 units) I see in their home castle. If Pythium decides that now is the time to take advantage of my obvious weakness, I'm really hosed.

We'll see!

Take-home lesson: Wear a safety helmet! I didn't quite realize that dragons only have 18 protection, which is nice, but not exactly invulnerable, even to normal troops. Spending 5 research points and 5 earth gems to give him a nice black steel helmet would have put his protection above 20, which is where I like it. So kids, remember, don't send your dragon out to play unless he's got his helmet.

Also, the Random Number Generator can be cruel. That one lance hit was 45 points of damage in one hit! Now, Cirin was kind of fatigued from spell-casting, so he might have had his armor ignored, but that's still a mighty big hit for a 16 damage no-strength-added armor-piercer.

Right, that was a bit disorganized. I think I'll leave it as it is, since it's a pretty good reflection of my thought processes.

Provinces: 7
Income: 522 Upkeep 140
Research: 47 (54 to Construction 4, also Evo 1 and Enchantment 1)
Gems: F 5 (+1) A 2 (+1) E 4 (+4) D 0 (+1) N 0 (+5). The cupboard, she is bare.

I was going to check the graphs again to see how the world was shaping up, but I like the suspense.